


Home

by Synaptica



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Earth, Brother/Brother Incest, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Kinda, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Time Skips, Werewolves, werecreatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 18:08:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synaptica/pseuds/Synaptica
Summary: Scot Adams just wants to be able to stand in the same room as his brother for more than two minutes at a time.





	Home

 

### Pick Your Poison

 

Mia returned to the living room brandishing a bottle of Grey Goose in one hand and a worn wooden box with a carving of a petunia on the top in the other.

“Pick your poison.”

Scot made a feeble gesture towards the box, scrubbing hand over his eyes. He’d discarded his hoodie back in the hallway and now he lay slumped on one of the many bean bags Mia and her roommates kept in the living room in lieu of actual furniture, shirt rucked up around his waist.

“Weed box it is,” Mia proclaimed, swerving around the TV stand to grab a box of tissues to toss to Scot. “But if you start spazzing I’m cutting you off, okay, Scotch?”

Scot nodded, catching the tissues one-handedly before giving a watery sniff. He looked a mess, totally unlike the relaxed Chem major Mia had gotten to know over the past two years. As her eyes skimmed over the long tear down one side of his button-down and the hickey peeking out over the collar, she found herself trying to recall the number for the campus crisis center. Was it 119 or 114…? _Shit._ She’d marked it down during orientation on a throwaway scrap of paper and hadn’t looked at it since. Now, looking at Scot Adams’s crumpled-up form on her Space Jam beanbag, she wondered if she’d found a reason to use it.

Mia plopped down on the lime-green bean bag next to him, rummaging through her bra for a lighter.

“No comments about me being an old lady today?”

Mia opened the box, licking a finger to roll out the paper. There was no response; when she turned her head Scot was staring blankly at the ceiling, another tear leaking slowly out of one eye. _Shit._ She really had no idea what to do. Her roommates were all out, something about pledge night for their sorority. Chastity might come back, though, if she knew it was an emergency—no, that might freak him out further. Scot had come to her, and he seemed—fairly calm, really, considering that whatever had happened had spooked him this badly.

Still, Mia eyed the protection charms located strategically throughout the room carefully, some tension unknotting from her lower back when they all came back bone-white at a glance. They were standard issue, mostly, the same set that came with all student housing; on a campus as mixed as Weston, it was more unusual to see a room without the telltale gleams of carved charms sprinkled liberally throughout than with. Mia had added a few of her own over the years, most notably after the Great Pillow Debacle of freshman year—the year that Scot had gotten drunk off of wine coolers, half-shifted in front of most of their graduating class, and shredded most of Mia’s decorative throws. He’d gone shopping with Mia afterwards—hence the bean bags—and sworn to never do it again, but Mia had shored up her household charms after anyway. A little extra protection never hurt, especially if you counted a Were among your best friends. 

For now Scot seemed to be controlling the shift just fine, though his eyes were looking a bit yellower than their usual amber tone. She opened the weed box and took out the paper and a bright purple packet. Scot stared at it blankly.

“What is that?”

“One of MJ’s new blends. It’s got, like, wormwood in it or some shit, I dunno.”

“Wormwood is a poison, Mi,” Scot ran a hand through his hair. It was sticking up in all directions now like a porcupine and Mia gave a snort of laughter. Scot looked at her sideways. “

“Well. Not that then, I guess. Wanna try it?”

“Actually…” Scot hesitated “No. I have some…some stuff I want to say first.”

“Okay.”

Mia closed the weed box and waited. When Scot didn’t start talking immediately she reached for the remote to put something mindless on, flicking through the channels until she hit what seemed to be some sort of hybrid reality-game show. Whatever it was, it seemed to involve a lot of passive-aggressiveness and glitter. They both watched in silence. Mia listened as Scot’s sniffles lessened, turning from great heaves of breath to soft exhales. The minutes ticked by. On screen, one of the contestants slapped another one before pouring what must have been a metric ton of glitter on herself. Mia decided that she really, really did not understand this show.

Scot broke the silence first.

“How’s Tess?”

“Oh, she’s great, we’re great, yadda yadda.”  Mia leaned back, careful to keep her eyes fixed on the screen.

“That’s…good. You’re coming up on two years, right?”

Scot’s voice wobbled a bit. Mia looked at him slantwise.

“Two years in November. Weather’s great too, blue skies for days. Wanna ask me about the last Mets game while you’re at it?”

“Fuck off.” Scot laughed, just a little. When he didn’t speak again Mia said, softly:

“You can talk about it. Whatever it is. I’m here.”

Scot heaved out a breath.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just—”

There was silence for a moment. Mia turned to look at him. He was staring fixedly ahead, the light of the TV reflecting off of his glasses as his mouth worked soundlessly. Scot breathed out a whoosh of and picked up the remote, muting one of the TV contestants mid-word before turning to Mia.

“It’s just, this…it isn’t…it’s not…good. It’s not a good story.”

“Sometimes those are the ones that need to be told the most.”

Mia cringed as soon as the words were out of her mouth, expecting a _well okay then, Jiminy_ or something similar back. God, she wasn’t even high yet and she was already saying stupid shit. But Scot only nodded once before falling silent again, staring down at his knees.

“You had a date with Ewan tonight, right?” Mia prompted. “Look, I know where he lives, if I need to fuck a bitch up—”

“Ewan?” Scot raised his head, eyes widening comically. “No, no, he’s—he’s great.”

Mia narrowed her eyes at him.

“No, really, he’s a good guy. We had a nice night out.” Scot looked down at himself as if taking in his rumpled appearance for the first time. “This is…we went back to his place and my wolf kinda…freaked out. Not because of anything he did!”

Scot threw up his hands, forestalling Mia’s question.

“It wasn’t his fault at all, and I wasn’t expecting it. I sort of…half-shifted and ended up having to run out. He just…he looked so shocked, Mi. It was awful.”

“You weren’t like, in the middle of anything, were you?”

“No, we’d barely gotten through the door. Something about being in his apartment…I don’t know.”

Scot broke off, scrubbing a hand across his lips.

“Did something happen after?”

“What? No. I ran it off and came straight here.”

Was that the whole story? Surely something like an accidental shift wasn’t enough to make the unflappable Scot Adams break down like this. But if it was, thank god. Not that shifting during a date wasn’t embarrassing—Mia wasn’t a shifter herself, but she’d heard enough horror stories—but Ewan was a shifter as well, a wolf-type like Scot, even.

“I’m sure Ewan’ll understand, Scotch. It happens to the best of us. We’re young, you know, hormones, yadda yadda. Hell, I’m sure the same thing’s happened to Ewan once or twice. He’ll be cool with it.”

“You don’t understand,” Scot said. “My wolf rejected him. It’s not…we’re not…I won’t see him again.”

“Oh.” Mia was taken aback for a moment. “Is that…something that can happen?”

She’d never heard of anything like a someone’s wolf rejecting something—after all, shifters were the animals they shifted into, to some extent, they weren’t separate people—but then again, her knowledge of shifters was far from complete. Damn, she knew she should’ve taken _NAT 115: Intro to Were Psychology_ last semester, but _NAT 135: Oni vs Unseelie: Seeing the Unseen_ had seemed so much more interesting, and Prof Gaulden did have a “hot” rating on _Rate My Professor_.

Still, she hadn’t thought that Scot was that into Ewan—they had been taking it slow, far slower that Scot had gone with his previous hookups, but Mia thought that had more to do with Were dating culture that any real feeling on Scot’s part. Scot tended to be pretty equal opportunity, the king of one-night stands and casual hookups to Mia’s serial monogamy. Ewan was the first Were he’d dated, to Mia’s knowledge

 “That sucks. I’m sorry. Breakups are the worst.”

“You don’t understand,” Scot said again. “It’s not—I thought if a tried with a Were, it might work. But—”

He scrubbed a hand across his lips again. Mia passed him the joint and he took a long, slow pull.

 “I guess I should just…I’m just going to say it, okay? I’m just going to say it.”

Scot was staring straight ahead again, face scrunched up like he was about to cry. One hand was shaking badly, the other white-knuckled against the edge of the beanbag. Mia felt her stomach do a slow flip, the same feeling she’d had when, at age fourteen, her father had called her younger sister and her down to the living room and said in slow, waterlogged tones, _“We’ve just had a call about Mom.”_

Unthinking, she reached out and interlaced their fingers together. He clutched back, hard. She could feel the fine tremors running down his arms. 

“When I was sixteen, I had sex with my brother. It was an accident.”

“But you don’t have a brother,” Mia said stupidly, feeling her fingertips turn to ice as a rush of cold washed through her body.

“I do, I just…I don’t really talk about him.” Scot was crying again, silently. He licked a teardrop off of his lips and continued. “He’s five years older than us. His name’s Travis. He’s out in California working for a marine lab. I haven't seen him in years. He...he wasn’t my first.”

Mia stayed silent, rubbing her fingers soothingly over his palm.

“God, I’m…going about this all wrong.” Scot hiccupped out a laugh, tilting his head back. “Okay, I’ll start from the beginning. You know all about Resurgence, right?”

“No, Scot, I haven’t spent the last three years of my life learning about Resurgence,” Mia teased gently, squeezing his hand. “Look, whatever you need to say, I’m here. I’m listening. Talk.”

Scot gave another watery laugh.

“Okay.”

He talked for over an hour. Mia made sympathetic noises but otherwise stayed quiet. Scot was right.

It wasn’t a good story.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Reader,
> 
> Oh boy. As this is the first (and probably last) author's note I intend to make on this work, I'll try to be comprehensive. 
> 
> First: this fic is going to be explicit starting ~~next chapter~~ some point in the near future. If that's not your cup of tea, please turn back now. I'm going to try to keep the tags on this as up-to-date as possible with giving too many spoilers--take heed and take care of yourself (and if you feel that I've missed a tag, please let me know)!
> 
> This is the first fic I've written for public consumption, so of course it's an explicit gay incest fic (sorry, mom). It contains numerous things that I hate in works, including far too much POV switching and copious amounts of angst. This work is entirely unbeta'd and isn't fully complete yet, so I expect that I'll be going back and fixing up these first few chapters at some point if I don't just delete the whole thing.
> 
> That's all from me, I think. Until next time.


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